Seamstress is a performance that invites participants to cut white oxford cloth shirts and attach it to the performer’s body with sewing pins, creating a collaborative garment, all the while clothing the subject. The performer and the participant experience shared emotions - vulnerability and discomfort - through relinquishing control within the collaboration. This exchange prompts an inherent physical risk to the performer while also placing a responsibility on the participant. The performer acts as a mirror that confronts the question of what it means to be vulnerable - and how does this act become a shared emotional experience. Will the roles between the performer and audience create an unwritten relationship of trust and empathy through the exchange or will the risk pose a threat to the performer? By practicing being vulnerable and opening up the possibility of pain, the situation also leads to a heightened state of awareness between both the performer and participant.

Seamstress is a performance that invites participants to cut white oxford cloth shirts and attach it to the performer’s body with sewing pins, creating a collaborative garment, all the while clothing the subject. The performer and the participant experience shared emotions - vulnerability and discomfort - through relinquishing control within the collaboration. This exchange prompts an inherent physical risk to the performer while also placing a responsibility on the participant. The performer acts as a mirror that confronts the question of what it means to be vulnerable - and how does this act become a shared emotional experience. Will the roles between the performer and audience create an unwritten relationship of trust and empathy through the exchange or will the risk pose a threat to the performer? By practicing being vulnerable and opening up the possibility of pain, the situation also leads to a heightened state of awareness between both the performer and participant.